Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Photoblog Hong Kong: Heritage Museum

Whoopee! Off we go to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum!

Cheer up, ladies! Things can only get better, eh? Like, we might be greeted by a soulless empty block of a Chinese government edifice, with the sole attribute that it has an escalator in a grand hall. The whole ground floor might be guarded by a wild looking Chinese lady with chaotic hair and rudimentary English who nonetheless has a nylon uniform! That will qualify her to extract a couple of hundred dollars from me for a family museum pass! That might happen yet, eh?

Once you get past the escalator guard who's trained to point at you and examine your museum sticker, you can travel in style on the glorious multi-speed escalator up to the top floor. There you'll find the real fierce looking tomb guardians, dragons, and pottery monstery creatures who've been recently exhumed from the yellow earth, now hungry and looking for blood. We might find those, what?

Or what about wandering off between the ceramics? I'm learning my Zhou from my Yuan and my Ming from my Shang.

That'll come in handy when we pass the local village cancer charity shop, and eye spy the Song dynasty celadon in the 50p bucket. I'll bargain the old woman down to 10p, then quick as a flash I'll be standing in a queue at the Antiques Roadshow, clutching my old green vase and blubbing how my grandfather passed it down through the generations, and how we used it for my grandmother's ashes. I'll tell the bloke at Sotherby's that grandad always said, keep the proceeds in the family.

Anyway. I'm wandering. Slap me about with some Cantonese opera. This museum is the world centre for that happy oddity.

Hey! We can be virtually made up!

My turn! I look fantastic. I shall start my Cantonese singing career immediately! How do mean, shut up screeching. Squirrel, I am enthused. This museum may have all the charm of an aircraft hanger, but look! It has amazing stuff in it! Me, Cantonese made up!

And then they have art! I'm sure we could bash out some squiggles. I like that. Squiggles with red hat. Only we are not allowed to take photographs. There are plenty of guards patrolling round the art. They probably outnumber me 3 to 1. Just a sly snap. Then runforit.

And I am glad to find Shark studiously copying down every display panel in the entire museum. She is into this government sponsored fun. One day I bet she marries someone like a corporate lawyer.

Tiger taking notes too! Get that! One day she might emerge from that state of childhood madness and become a fashion designer or textile artist. Her key influence she will cite as the pink sparkly Cantonese opera costume of Sha Tin. You never know. That's the glory of home ed. You're free to wander into a Hong Kong Heritage Museum, as severe and as heavy a building as you could think up of brick, marble and concrete, then do whatever takes your fancy with Hong Kong heritage, so long as you don't nick it, photograph it, or cross one of the 2,300 patrolling heritage guardians in blue nylon.

But thanks to the family museum pass, we'll be back soon! We have yet to see the history of Sha Tin and 100 years of Chinese railways! Whoopee!

Two daughters are now at 6th form for A-levels, and one is mucking about in a college playing with clay, paint and wax. Mostly, it's all about culture clash.If you are looking for primary, try the archives under 2011 or 2012. Ideas? Try Seven days with elephants.

Secondary home ed? Try 2012 or 2014 through to 2016.

Exams made life boring for us all and the blog stopped for long periods so the home educated could concentrate on enjoying some teens.

Here I am

When we reach the end of the road we discover the beginning of the field.
Parent, educator, thinker, doer, prevaricator, writer, maker, messer-upper, consensus-seeker, polemic, conflict-avoider, conflict-seeker, vegetarian, leather fondler, shouty person, 'don't-pick-fights-with-me, mister', book dipper, theatre-goer, watcher of films, and person who has unruly thoughts, generally. Prefer the imaginative world where everything is under my control.

where is everybody?

This blog is a record of a home educationwrit for parents thinking about home edwrit for the LA who need an education about home edwrit for Grit's friends and relations who drop in once a yearand writ for Grit's sane and lovely mind.

The internal DCSF Consultation Report, made public 23 January. (pdf)In Annex A, 94% of respondents disagreed that the local authority should have the power to interview a home educated child alone.When this comes out Ed Balls' mouth in the Second Reading Debate, 94% against turns to:'The vast majority of parents would be happy to let that happen'(Hansard 11.01.10, Children, Schools and Families Bill, col 437.)

Love it or loathe it? The petition still broke a record.Press release in the Mirror, Channel4 news, the Guardian.

'Even if you don't currently see yourself home educating, you never know what the future might hold, and if a time comes when you find yourself needing to pull your child out of school, I hope the option is still available to you, and you don't regret thinking *it's nothing to do with me*.'

Read the Right to Reply'Home educators are renowned for their strong opinions and independent spirit. They come from all faiths and none. They have as many approaches to education as there are children. They rarely agree on anything. And yet they are remarkably united in their opposition to these proposals. There is great concern that their way of life will be legislated out of existence.'--Response to the Badman Review of Elective Home Education in England and reaction to the Select Committee hearing.

The problem with home educators is that they are impossible to define. The only things that links them is respect for their children. And did the state just stagger foolishly across that line?Are we sandal wearing tree huggers who let our kids run wild or control mad Jesus freaks who don't want them learning about sex and evolution? Are we hot housing or leaving them to watch TV and play computer games all day? -Firebird.The UK government suggested that we home educate our children to cover up our abuse.On that issue, would you like some statistics?

'The Department [for Children, Schools and Families] is aware that attempts are being made on the Internet to vilify and harass the author of the review. It is the Department's view that, whilst dealing with each request on its merits, this situation will have to be taken into account in dealing with any relevant FOI requests. ... we anticipate the need to consider whether it is in the public interest to release information likely to intensify any such campaign, or to lead to harassment or distress to individuals.'Hello DCSF. Vilify: to make vicious and defamatory statements about.Like putting it about that home educated children are abused by their parents? Isolated? Unsocialised? Denied an education?And the latest one, that their mothers have Munchhausen's Syndrome by Proxy, and benefit from their child's suffering.

... compulsory registration, entry to the home, inspection according to external standards, and power to see the child without the parent present.By implication this applies to anyone who has their child at home with them: particularly parents with under 5s, but also those with school-aged children who are at home in the evenings, over the weekends, and throughout the summer holidays. Think on: the possibility of parental inspection, with or without your presence, based on the very human whim of a local authority officer.Is that okay with you?Renegade Parent on the implications for all parents from the Badman review of home education.

'Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children'.(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, Article 26.3)

Photos and text copyright Grit.This is Grit's blog. The pictures come from her broken phone camera, and they are hers by right.

The words too are Grit's, Grit's, all Grit's. This is not to say you cannot use any words that Grit uses - after all, she is the unhinged woman who once banned SOIL - but you just cannot lift them in the long, complex and lovely arrangements, like the ones Grit has writ.

Please ask! If you wish to take images from this site, please send an email to gritsday@gmail.com

Keywords you may need for grit's day

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